Household saving is defined as the difference between a household’s disposable income (wages, income of the self-employed and net property income) and its consumption (expenditures on goods and services.)

Standard Chartered to Close Private-Equity Unit

Advertisement

LONDON?Standard Chartered PLC is winding down its troubled private-equity business rather than selling it to its managers, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.

Joe Stevens, the head of the unit, has left the bank, along with Bert Kwan, who worked on the unit's Southeast Asia business.

Nainesh Jaisingh, a senior member of the private-equity team, will be in charge of disposing of the unit's roughly $5 billion in investments in 80 companies over the next two years.

A Standard Chartered spokesman declined to comment.

Standard Chartered Chief Executive Bill Winters said in August the private-equity business was under review. Under pressure from regulators, other banks have also been shedding their private-equity arms because of rising capital charges and the potential for conflicts of interest in such businesses.

On Tuesday, Mr. Winters told reporters on an earnings call that, "we are consistently looking at all of our businesses, both in terms of their outright performance but also how they fit with our portfolio, and in the context of evolving regulatory capital rules and our risk tolerances."

A few hours earlier, Mr. Stevens had been told the unit would be wound down, the person familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Stevens and members of his team negotiated for months with the bank to take their unit private and came close to reaching a deal, people familiar with the matter said.

Around 85 people work in the principal finance unit covering private-equity and real-estate investments. Standard Chartered's stakes in the portfolio amount to around $2 billion, with the rest of the $5 billion invested coming from outside funds.